We're planning Fall workshop series to introduce faculty and students to open science practices and OSF services. There will be 1 Introduction session before that to talk about why we want to incorporate open science into our research, what practices to consider, and what are available OSF services. This session will be followed by a panel discussion, which serves as an informal platform to address some of the misinformation about open science as well. Most people in the audience will be new to open science, some might have concerns about being open and sharing materials, and some might be even skeptical about it. Thank you for your time and contributions!

Is peer review lower quality and more work if the name of the reviewer is known because "stupid" questions would be disincentived? Isn't anonymity important for reducing the influence of hierarchy in open science/review?

Does anyone have number on how much does the public trust science (we are one of the most trusted professions)? Is it worth it to change to scientific method to increase it?

3 Answers

From my experience, nobody reasonably objects the values of transparency per se. Discussions mainly are about:

The tension between individual/strategic perspective ("I don't want that others profit from my hard work", "research parasites", felt unfairness, competition) and communal perspective (Science progresses much faster and more efficiently if it is open, I can profit from other's resources).

Efficiency arguments ("In principle open science is great - but is it really worth the effort? There will be thousands of data sets on OSF which will never be reused or even looked at - why do the authors need to put so much work in the codebooks etc., if nobody looks at it anyway?")

The side-effects argument: Maybe there are unwanted side-effects which we do not see yet - better not rush into new norms. (e.g. the infamous "preregistration stifles creativity" argument; see https://psyarxiv.com/2yphf and the associated special issue on the topic)

I think probing these (felt) dilemmas is a good way to get the discussion started (and to address some misinformations).

First question is what kind of audience do you expect? Also multidisciplinary? Students? ERCs? Senior researchers? Managers? Funders? Publishers? I think the questions should ideally be questions the audience would like to ask but can't think of at that moment. Students and ERCs are quite different in their view on open science in my experience. Students seem more guided by idea of a logical and efficient system. ERCs tend to worry more about career effects. Questions on how to move towards a more open and efficient system while avoiding detrimental effects for ERC careers and not putting burden on new generation may be best to capture audience attention. Another starter could be to ask the panelists what open science means to them. Simply ask them all to write down a definition and then share that with the audience. The writing down is in order to not have them influence each other. You can even involve the audience in this. Another idea is to focus on how to integrate open science practices in graduate school courses if professors themselves have not yet adopted these practices. I also like the constructive approach, focussing on small things you can start doing next week and praising people for what they already do. Be prepared though to in the 2nd half of the session also address 1 or 2 more contentious issues like impact factors, scooping, costs etc. A final idea is to not only ask about the how but also the why: things like relevance (societal problems, output availability, engagement), rigour (efficiency, replicability, open data/code/methods) and equity (participation, contributorship). Or even make it more personal: "What goals do you want to achieve/contribute to by practising open science?". It may be interesting to hear a bit about individual drives/motivations.

Ask Open Science used to be called Open Science Q&A but we changed the name when we registered the domain ask-open-science.org. Everything else stays the same: We are still hosted by Bielefeld University Library.